telemedicine

When President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency in late October, it triggered a regulatory change intended to make it easier for people to get care in places with provider shortages. This declaration allows for the prescribing of addiction medicine virtually, without doctors ever seeing the patient in person. (The regulatory change is not fully implemented until the DEA issues further rules.)

Telemedicine, the medical practice in which doctors remotely diagnose illnesses and prescribe medication through phone calls or video conferencing, has for years been used to treat illnesses ranging from strep throat to ear infections.

If someone is well-educated, the odds are that he or she will marry someone with similar credentials, according to census data. And that trend has consequences when it comes to access to health care in rural areas.

Rural areas have for years been facing a doctor shortage. That means for the roughly 20 percent of Americans who live in those areas, it’s harder to get care when it’s needed. Policymakers have been trying to create programs that offer medical debt forgiveness and other incentives to doctors willing to set up shop away from the city. But a research letter published Tuesday in JAMA highlights how a key demographic change — the rise of power couples — is stacking the deck against these efforts.

When children get sick at school, it can be a big disruption. For the kids – they have to miss class –and for mom or dad, who have to leave work, try and schedule a last minute doctor’s appointment, maybe even go to the emergency room. So, what if kids could see a pediatrician without having to leave school?

With just a few clicks of the mouse, Orlando mom Alyssa Grimes visits with a pediatrician from the comfort of her living room. She logs into a Skype-like application on her laptop, where she virtually meets her child's doctor based across town at Nemours Children's Hospital.

A recent study by the Missouri Telehealth Network shows both patients and providers are satisfied with the quality of care telemedicine provides. Telemedicine allows a patient to speak to a provider via a video call, and has been an option for Missourians for the past 21 years and .

Ninety percent of patients and providers surveyed in the study were satisfied with the quality of care received via telemedicine.

Faced with a computer program, adults with depression were generally "unwilling to engage" in a recent British study. Depressed patients preferred to interact with human beings.

But, WBUR's Common Health reports, there's still a place for technology in mental health care. Video conference sessions with therapists, for example, or using computer programs as a complement to live interaction.

Six-year old Jason Green squirms in a dental chair at a clinic in Sodus, New York while a hygienist probes his mouth with an unusual instrument. It looks like an electric toothbrush, but it is a camera and it’s capturing images that allow Jason’s dentist to inspect his teeth in detail--from 30 miles away. The dentist, Dr. Sean McClaren, practices at the Eastman Institute for Oral Health in Rochester, NY, but he sees several patients a week in this rural community, via a secure internet connection and a video call.